Starts With Goodbye
by KiaraAlexisKlay
Summary: A little songfic that as soon as I heard I thought MaxLiz. Just what may have influenced a major decision. ML to begin with.


**Title: **Starts With Goodbye

**Genre:** Roswell, Songfic

**Disclaimer:** Roswell and its characters belong to Jason Katims, Melinda Metz, and the WB. The song, _Starts With Goodbye_ is taken from Carrie Underwood's album and I have no rights to that either.

**Summary:** A one-shot (hopefully) Songfic that is pure M/L angst.

**Pairing: **This is angst so there's really no pairing, isn't that the definition for writing angst? Starts out M/L at the beginning, with gradual vague references to M/T at the end.

**Rating:** Well, let's just put this at PG-13

* * *

**"Starts With Goodbye"

* * *

**

Liz stood in stunned silence as Future Max revealed in all his heart shattering irony, the very nightmare that she had feared in the deepest part of her mind.

Suddenly she knew what she had to do, staring into those soulful dark eyes, so much older, so filled with pain and love and resignation.

* * *

_I was sitting on my doorstep,  
I hung up the phone and it fell out of my hand,  
But I knew I had to do it,  
And he wouldn't understand,

* * *

_

Fourteen years advanced physically but mentally and emotionally he was centuries ahead. War had claimed all that he had held dear, and it was as the King that he had found the strength to come back through time for this mission.

But despite that, he was still Max. Older, wiser, beaten down, but he was still Max. He was still her heart, her soul, and her breath for life. He loved her like he loved nothing else in the universe. He was the other part of her and he knew exactly what it was he asked of her and what the price would be.

And yet he still asked.

* * *

_So hard to see myself without him,  
I felt a piece of my heart break,  
But when you're standing at a crossroad,  
There's a choice you gotta make._

* * *

There it was.

Her future was laid bare if they pursued their own versions of Destiny. The man she loved, children, her nearest and dearest dead or dying, and two worlds on the brink of annihilation.

All was possible and going to happen because she held the heart of a King.

Unless she broke it.

Liz Parker was going have to choose. A season of happiness ending in death and destruction, or a lifetime of becoming broken so worlds could remain whole. In the end, it wasn't a choice at all.

* * *

_I guess it's gonna have to hurt,  
I guess I'm gonna have to cry,  
And let go of some things I've loved,  
To get to the other side,  
I guess it's gonna break me down,  
Like falling when you try to fly,  
It's sad, but sometimes moving on with the rest of your life,  
Starts with goodbye.

* * *

_

He asked her not as the King, but as the one who loved her.

He asked her to trust him.

He asked her to love him.

He asked her to give him up and make it in a way that he wouldn't come begging on hands and knees for her to take him back.

So she gave him up.

She knew, even as he had known before he had even asked her, what she had to do.

He told her to break them apart, find some way to keep the newest member of the Pod Squad with them, but more importantly…find a way to make sure her soulmate and eternal love was together with another woman…in all ways.

And she did.

See how well he knew her.

* * *

_I know there's a blue horizon,  
Somewhere up ahead, just waiting for me,  
Getting there means leaving things behind,  
Sometimes life's so bitter sweet._

* * *

A lifetime spent loving him.

Of wondering just how it would feel to know and be on the receiving end of his love. And finally realizing that he had felt the same way toward her that she felt toward him, of connecting with him so thoroughly, so completely.

It had nothing to do with alien powers, though there was that, but perhaps the reason they joined together so absolutely was because what they had with each other was a true resonating of spirits.

And she had to give him up.

To another.

* * *

_I guess it's gonna have to hurt,  
I guess I'm gonna have to cry,  
And let go of some things I've loved,  
To get to the other side,  
I guess it's gonna break me down,  
Like falling when you try to fly,  
It's sad, but sometimes moving on with the rest of your life,  
Starts with goodbye.

* * *

_

They were together now.

She despised the fact that she had had to resort to lies and deceit in order to bring this about. That she had to play a part that was so unlike her, but in that, was how it had to be done.

That she not only had to lose the man who owned her by the soul strings, but the friendship and respect of people she swore she never wanted to hurt, only protect. That she was now _the Enemy_ and _the Traitor_.

But the break had to be clean, there had to be no possibility that he would look back and wonder.

Wonder what would be, what could never be, if he went back to her.

It was enough that she knew.

It had to be.

As Liz Parker packed the last of her clothing and belongings into the final box, she felt the tears prickle and threaten to roll down her face, but she resisted. He had known, she had known after he had told her, that this was how it had to be.

* * *

_Time, time heals,  
The wounds that you feel,  
Somehow, right now.__

* * *

The bags and boxes were packed, the moving van finally here, and all her possessions were being loaded up by strangers into the cold, unfeeling metal of the vehicle._

Still, Liz held herself, together. She held back a laughing sob as she lovingly caressed the fabric of her CrashDown uniforms, fingered the ridiculous bobbing antennae headband.

So many memories, both good and bad had occurred with this uniform and the other two just like it.

She felt their eyes upon her as she went down to the diner for one last walk through, and she kept herself busy and far away, so they couldn't see her face, see how she was trying not to show them how broken she truly was.

It wasn't like she was welcome with them anymore.

* * *

_I guess it's gonna have to hurt,  
I guess I'm gonna have to cry,  
And let go of some things I've loved,  
To get to the other side,  
I guess it's gonna break me down,  
Like falling when you try to fly,  
It's sad, but sometimes moving on with the rest of your life,  
Starts with goodbye,_

* * *

The sign read: _You are now leaving Roswell_.

There were pictures of little aliens on the billboards accompanying it. She was leaving Roswell to live with her aunt in Florida, and gradually going to go college there.

Leaving for and living someplace far away from Roswell, New Mexico and Maxwell Evans and his destiny.

Starting a new life.

Sitting in the backseat, away from those hurt and betrayed and angry eyes, Liz finally gave in.

She cried, and as she forcefully shut down the connection to her other half, her heart splintered and tore and ripped through the _I'm-alright_ façade she'd forced upon herself.

It felt as if she were going to die, but she knew just as he had, that it was the only way to live.

* * *

_I guess I'm gonna have to cry,  
And let go of some things I've loved,  
To get to the other side,  
Starts with goodbye,  
The only way you try to find,  
Moving on with the rest of your life,  
Starts with goodbye,  
Na na na na na na na._

* * *

Back in the CrashDown, Max Evans gave a jerk and his hand reached for his chest, ignoring the concerned glances of his family and his new girlfriend chosen for him by Destiny.

His heart felt as if someone had ripped it out of his chest and then there was a sudden silence.

For a moment, he was confused; it was like being blinded in one eye and he couldn't figure out what was wrong. His mind automatically reached for that place that had always comforted and soothed him no matter what, and there was nothing. A gaping hole in his soul and mind.

That gaping nothingness frightened and saddened him, especially when he finally realized what it meant.

Liz Parker wasn't there when he needed her.

It all started with her parting words, spoken so softly he hadn't been sure they were real, as they had been in his mind where she had once been.

_It starts with goodbye.

* * *

_

-Finis-

* * *

_A/n: Okay, what do you think? My first shot at angst, and I don't do angst well because it makes me feel all…angsty and sad. I can't believe I wrote this._

_But I knew when I heard this song by Carrie Underwood that if I ever chose wrote a Songfic it would have to be for Max and Liz. I mean it's just so them!_

_So I read this really awesome, brilliantly written angsty fic by Dazedizzy in the Dark Angel realm and I bawled like a baby and sat down immediately to write this after lifting the lyrics off the Internet._

_Let Jareth and I know what you think and hopefully I won't have to write another tearjerker like this!_


End file.
